The map of XKeyscore servers from a 2008 presentation (Image from theguardian.com)

New revelations about NSA surveillance systems show that it was enough to fill in a short ‘justification’ form before gaining access to any of billions of emails, online chats, or site visit histories through a vast aggregation program called XKeyscore.

The structure of XKeyscore, leaked by the UK’s Guardian newspaper, is sourced from a classified
internal presentation from 2008 and a more recent
Unofficial User Guide, presumably obtained by Edward Snowden when
he was a contractor for the National Security Agency in the past
year.

It shows that XKeyscore – then located on 750 servers around 150
sites worldwide – is a vast collection and storage program that
served as the entry point for most information that was collected
by the NSA. The Guardian claims that in one 30-day period in 2012
the program acquired 41 billion records.

The information is not just metadata – depersonalized analytical
usage statistics that allow spies to spot patterns – but includes
almost all types of personal information. Using any piece of
personal data on a subject – an email address, or the IP address
of a computer – an agent could look up all online user
activities, such as Google map searches, website visits,
documents sent through the internet or online conversations. The
service operates both, in real time, and using a database of
recently stored information.

All that appears to have been necessary to log into the system is
to fill in a compulsory line on a form that gave a reason for why
a certain person needed to be investigated. The form was not
automatically scanned by the system or a supervisor, and did not
require a US legal warrant, as long as the person whose name was
typed in was a foreigner (even if his interactions were with a US
citizen).

The slides appear to vindicate security specialist Edward
Snowden’s claims made during the original video he recorded in
Hong Kong last month.

"I, sitting at my desk, could wiretap anyone, from you or your
accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a
personal email," he alleged then.

Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence
committee later said that Snowden was “lying”.

The NSA has issued a statement to the Guardian, which does not
now appear to deny the capabilities of XKeyscore, but merely to
defend its use.

"NSA's activities are focused and specifically deployed
against – and only against – legitimate foreign intelligence
targets in response to requirements that our leaders need for
information necessary to protect our nation and its
interests,” said the NSA.

User-friendly global spying

What strikes an outsider as particularly astonishing is the
integration, user-friendliness and functional variety provided by
the XKeyscore suite, as seen in the available slides (and its
capabilities may have expanded significantly in the intervening
years).

The presentation makes XKeyscore appear little more complicated
than a search engine – but one that can find almost anything.
After the heading “What can you do with XKeyscore?” the slides
outline ways in which the system can fish useful information out
of the morass of internet noise.

The presentation gives examples of possible questions that can be
answered with the aid of the search abilities provided:

My target speaks German,
but is in Pakistan, how can I find him?

I have a jihadist document
that has been passed around through numerous people, who
wrote this and where were they?

My target uses Google maps
to scope target locations – can I use this information to
determine his email address?

The document then goes on to show that even basic facts do not
need to be known to root out potential terrorists, with the
system offering a nuanced analysis of “anomalous” behavior that
makes a suspect stand out.

Once information has been fished out, it can be categorized using
a selection of plug-ins that index user activity, including all
the emails, phone numbers and sites that suspect has come into
contact with.

While XKeyscore collects so much data that it has to be wiped
within days, anything useful be stored on a smaller, though still
sizeable database called Pinwale that keeps records for up to
five years.

The presentation boasts that 300 terrorists were caught with
XKeyscore in the years leading up to 2008.

While Fisa regulations mean that US citizens can only be
clandestinely observed with a warrant, the search does not always
identify the nationality of those it spies on, and in any case,
having a foreign contact is sufficient to expand the search to a
large proportion of US citizens.

And while they are not the stated target of XKeyscore,
communications between ordinary Americans, whether those pass
through domestic and international servers, are inevitably caught
in the net.

Technically, a person with access to the system could just as
easily spy on an American within a few clicks, as they could on a
foreigner, though this would be illegal.

In last month’s Guardian interview Snowden insisted that there
was nothing stopping this from happening.

"It's very rare to be questioned on our searches, and even
when we are, it's usually along the lines of 'let's bulk up the
justification'," he claimed. While NSA officials have
admitted "a number of compliance problems", which they say
were not made “in bad faith”, they say the latest revelations are
not proof that the system is illegal vulnerable to abuse.

"Allegations of widespread, unchecked analyst access to NSA
collection data are simply not true. Access to XKeyscore, as well
as all of NSA's analytic tools, is limited to only those
personnel who require access for their assigned tasks … In
addition, there are multiple technical, manual and supervisory
checks and balances within the system to prevent deliberate
misuse from occurring," said the NSA statement.

"These types of programs allow us to collect the information
that enables us to perform our missions successfully – to defend
the nation and to protect US and allied troops abroad."